by Dorse Green
I honestly felt like I was tired of running, so I could no longer look around and check if anyone was following me. I would just get out of my house and visit my friends randomly. I needed to live my life, especially not knowing when this whole madness would end. So one day when I left the house, I walked across the parking lot to my friend’s place. I found him waiting for me because I had called to tell him that I was on my way. When I got inside, I took a seat, kicked off my shoes and slid the recliner back. James was in a relationship of his own, but you know how it is, us young fellas liked to enjoy ourselves from time to time.
Even though he had his problems in his secret “relationships” he managed to control the situation in his own way. You know, it was like my own episodes, only without being threatened by stalkers. No one can say their relationship is perfect and I can speak for my boys, especially when it came to James. Because at the end of the night, pull up your seats because it’s about to be a showcase. On this day he appeared to be at peace. They had not been fighting for some time and I’m pretty sure things were going quite smooth in his secret “relationships.” It was easy to see that he was super relaxed when I entered his home.
As soon as I took my seat, James was alarmed to hear his phone ring from out of the blue because he was having a nice time and forgot he had put it in his shirt pocket where it made a lot of noise as it rang. I laughed because he really seemed startled by the sound of his own phone. “Hello?” He casually responded not even thinking about the possibility of someone out to get him. As he responded to the call, I realized there was no straight response from the person on the other end. As for James, he sat up straight as he also shifted gingerly on the couch. That really got me worrying right there, and I was right.
As soon as I saw him looking towards me while on the call, I knew that it was them calling his phone. By now, there was no guessing the extent they would go to get phone numbers of the people that were close to me. As I listened in on the conversation, I heard James say, “No, he’s not around.” But he looked scared. I knew it was them asking about me. He was about to hang up when he took the phone back to his ear and then rose quickly to give me the phone as I watched in silence. I was still surprised by the sudden change of mind as he gave me the phone.
“Why not leave her? It seems you love other people more than her. Why keep her?” The whispering voice said and just hung up on me. I gave the phone back, surprised that now they’re calling my friends’ phones too. Stuck in silence we’re both shocked about this recent event.
“Why would you give me the phone? You should have stuck to saying that I wasn’t around.” Bro, I tried, but her reply was, “I know he’s there because I just saw him walk across the street and if you value your relationship, you will put him on the phone.” I said to my friend who quickly told me that he wanted to, but the voice in the phone was getting aggressive and threatening to end his relationship just like what mine was about to experience. “What?” I was surprised to now learn that the whispering voice truly wanted to end my relationship with Angela. Now the truth about their intention was out there and I was determined to fight that. The only problem was that even if I was determined, I wasn’t the only one in the equation, and the conundrum in all this was to keep Angela on my side all the time – only that I had my own annoying habits that she would be required to love to see from time to time.
Anyway, even if she had tried to flip the numbers, the lunch with Kris happened and many other encounters followed. That was just my way of life and trying to stop that was very difficult, even by my own efforts. The day at my friend’s place drove me back to living a cautious life. Even if I wanted to ignore this whole stalking thing, it was clear that it grew to unprecedented levels by each week, and I just could not afford to stay relaxed. And, since the lunch with Kris, I found myself wandering back to my old ways – cheating and more cheating was to follow.
However, I could feel that, this time, I was a little bit cautious. With me back in the ‘game’ as we used to call it, I had to always be watchful who watches me. But because the stalkers were always on my tail, there were many times that Angela would question my behavior. We would fight, become distant for a day or two locked in separate worlds only to fix things later. I can’t lie to say that I enjoyed life or arguing with Angela that was always draining and even scary because I couldn’t shake the feeling that she could just get up and leave me forever in the middle of one of the arguments. With that being said, I guess you might be wondering why then did I keep on cheating on her when I was scared of her leaving me – especially when there was someone giving her information about my dealings willingly. My response to that is, maybe I enjoyed clubbing and women more than I enjoyed being at home. Therefore, even though I feared the worst with Angela could happen, I just, sometimes, thought the trade-off would be worth it. Crazy, right?
Angela would visit with my family from time to time and spend a weekend there. Sometimes I would feel bad and remain home when she was away, but sometimes I would just up the tempo in terms of all my shenanigans. And don’t think she wouldn’t come back and know – she would know everything because the stalkers would have packaged all the details nicely for her. I just had ceased to mind that, as long as we talked through things and understood each other. One thing that I was now in the habit of saying was that I never slept with any of the girls. Angela would, sometimes, believe me because that’s just what I do, I found a way out of every story.
So, this weekend, she left our home and decided to visit with my parents. She took both our children, and explained to me, she was going to be returning on Sunday. Left alone for the weekend, I immediately decided to take a chance while my family was hours away. I knew that even if I went out and came back early in the morning, she would never know about this because the drive from where they were was hours away. I was free to do whatever I wanted. I knew that the stalkers would be lurking, but I just didn’t mind them at all. This time, I thought I was going to dodge them, somehow.
Soon after making that decision, I found myself and friends driving to this fully packed beach. There were all sorts of girls around and the place looked like it was full of life, so who was I not to get into the mood of this place? I decided I should just ‘catch on’ to the fun and just ride along with the rest of the people that were there, including my outgoing friends. However, I was, all the time, worried of being followed or seen by the ‘wandering’ eye. So I stayed cautious of where I was and who was around me all the time, even though I knew that my stalker would not just reveal themselves besides lurking in the shadows.
As I fell into temptations with my friends, we came across an interesting group of girls who had parked their cars close to ours, I remained cautious and never wanted to stay in open areas where I could be exposed by the distant eye. You could be wondering why go into all this trouble just for the company of some new and random ladies – but this was our way of life with my friends. It’s like we used that as oxygen – it gave us a reason to be alive. Funny as it sounds, we seemed to enjoy doing this over and over again.
So as soon as we saw these girls, there were no two ways about it other than hoping out of our vehicle and letting our presence known. We always did it in a very special way that made it difficult for anyone to resist the kind of charm we let out. We had been in the game for a long time and we knew which buttons to press. It was as easy as that! The girls expectedly became entertained and agreed to share their time with us as we quickly chose who to pick among ourselves. You know when guys meet girls, each of the guys should pick their own girl – and the girls know this, so they will be ready for those kinds of things.
In the end, we combined our parties and partied together for as long as we could. We popped bottles and danced to some generous tunes from the radio. It made me forget about all my problems as expected, I let my guard down, paved the way for the stalkers to see as they wanted too. When the time was getting late, the girls said they wanted to go,
but we did not want to lose such a wonderful company so early. We just could not let the evening end prematurely like that. So we sent out invitations for them to join our nightly gathering. The girls agreed and they made some phone calls, I think they were telling whoever was back at their homes that they had found some cool guys to spend the rest of the evening with.
From the time we left the beach to a more private place, we had the time of our lives. We did many things with the girls and the ecstasy that I missed from back in the day was back! At the moment, I could care less who was watching me. I met this girl and she knew how to press all my buttons, we exchanged numbers and promised to get into a replay of this wonderful moment that we both enjoyed. Seeing me like this made my friends really happy about me. I wasn’t that paranoid guy always looking around and behaving like I would point a gun at anyone that passed by me.
As the old adage says, whatever goes up shall come down, indeed, we pulled down the curtains on this highly entertaining night we had with the girls from the beach. I went back to an empty home with one of the girls with the possibility of being caught in the act. Nonetheless, I was highly under the influence without a care in my body. It’s something about temptation that gets me every time, even when I have everything to lose. I woke up early the next morning to make sure the apartment was straightened up to how it was before Angela left. One thing I know about women is that they are very observant when it comes to their territory.
With Angela returning home from my parents, I tried to look excited about seeing her and cracked some jokes as I greeted my family. But in all honesty, I felt guilt caused by my action giving my time to another woman in our home. But I was surprised to see all my jokes just going to waste as Angela kept on staring at me as she unpacks. Can she see the guilt written all over my face or does she see something that has been left out of place? A day past as I returned home from work Angela suddenly tossed a pile of letters before me and said she found them stacked in her underwear drawer. I opened them and found them narrating every move that I made during this past weekend, including what transpired when I went for a private celebration with my weekend friends.
Oh, and by the way, I was told to ask you who the volleyball girl was as she handed me a bracelet. There was no easy way to deny all of this like I was used to doing. My only chance was to stick to facts that no solid proof was presented and letters from a person who would say whatever to ruin our relationship. Worked like a charm or is Angela allowing me to think she’s naive?
But this was extreme! I could hear Angela as she was speaking, but my main focus was on this person entering my home where my kids sleep and all this is because of me. I found myself wondering how they got in so I began to search for unlocked windows. Stepping into our bedroom to find one window unlatched and the screen to the window had been taken off and placed on the ground below. Not only was I extremely upset about the possibilities of the stalker entering my home, but I found myself questioning Angela if she set all this up herself. I had a very hard time getting past the fact that just so happens the weekend she was away a window was left unlatched.
According to the stalkers, their latest stunt of placing letters and the bracelet in the underwear drawer of my last accused encounter was meant to be the final straw to my relationship. They thought that this time, my relationship was just going to go off the rails and leave everything falling apart. I feared for the same thing to happen, but somehow, I was very fortunate to live another day without having to count myself as someone who just got dumped by the mother of his children. But even as I think that I had gotten away with it, it left an indelible mark in the heart of Angela.
For the next two days, I could see the amount of pain in her eyes. I tried to stay at home so that she sees that I was still committed to our relationship, but that was all effort I did in vain. The worst part about all my actions was that, I’m pretty sure it ate into her confidence levels. I most likely drove her into doubting herself and she may have started to doubt her ability to be a partner that was capable of being loved by anyone - perhaps that was the reason why she hung on to me even when I cheated on her on countless occasions. Thinking about that really drove me to a significant amount of pain – something I did not usually do for her.
A few days passed and we began laughing together once again. As this happened, it was all in the eyes of our stalker. Imagine, they thought we were going to break up, but were surprised to see that we were actually laughing and making all sorts of jokes with the kids. I even started to spend more time at home to show that home was where I really wanted to be. This should really have pissed off the stalker because what followed from her was kind of drastic!
One beautiful morning, I decided to step outside for some fresh air and come back to talk to the family about the plans for the rest of the day. I was surprised to be greeted by a strangely poised car of ours in the driveway. What? I immediately took my eyes to the wheels and discovered that all of them had been slashed using a knife. Strange!
I knew that it was them and now they were really getting me scared. I sat down near the car and once again started thinking what I could have done to make this person hate me this much? I could not find the answers to all these questions. After a while when I had gone back to tell Angela about the bad news, I then realized that it was the stalker who was getting angry because of my growing connection with Angela when they had thought that they put the final nail to our relationship.
Vibrations enter my phone, incoming private caller. “Hello.” I bet you think you’re the man huh? I bet you think, just because you are able to manipulate your dumb baby mama into staying with you, she doesn’t have a motion set in play of her own huh? “Whatever!” Do you really believe she is allowing you to be the only one to enjoy himself? Who cares, why are you calling me? We just thought you should know, your baby mama has been enjoying the company of another man and by the way, congratulations on your new born baby, “she may not be yours.” Silence followed by a dial tone.
The stalker will say anything to break me, I thought to myself. Trying to convince myself not to let them get to me. But the problem was, when have they ever been wrong when it came down to my relationship? Everything they have ever written about me in the letters given to Angela have been true! Shedding tears about Angela stepping out on me, I could handle, but the thought of my newborn baby girl possibly not being mine, ate me up inside from that day on. I cried out for God to make this go away. I refused to mention this phone call to anyone and chose to take this to my grave because regardless of these accusations to be true about Angela, I just knew I was the father of our newborn baby girl.
For me, that was a very difficult phone call. Imagine them beginning to use my family to get to me. I needed to do something about it, but the question was always how was I going to be able to do so, if I didn’t know where to start, nor did I know surely who was behind it.
“No better opportunity to come up with a brilliant plan while being on the road away from home”. Brotha, I need your help. James replies, with a concern what’s up? Brotha, I think my house is bugged somehow. James, huh? It has to be, there’s no other way Lynn can know everything that I do. How else is she able to know everything that I do? I really don’t know what’s going on right now, but it has my mind all jacked up!” James replies, what do you mean? It’s some crazy shit going on and I truthfully don’t know who’s behind it. James replies, well talk to me, let’s try to figure this out. Brotha, someone’s playing games with me and they are taking it too far.
“How are the kids and Angela? They are fine, but I feel they may be in danger. You know, I try my best to keep my cool around Angela because I’m the man of the house and I can’t allow myself to show any sign of weakness. But truth be told brotha, I’m afraid. I can’t see how this person is so destined to hurt me, whomever they may be. I just know I need answers so I can connect these small pieces of a puzzle I am trying my best to complete. Will you help me? Because r
ight now I feel like I am fighting a battle I cannot win. I got you bro, so what’s the plan?
“First, I want you to know there have been some things that have taken place that has me questioning Angela.” James drops his head. Bro, it may just be me, but when I got that phone call about you the other day, I promise you, that voice sounded like Angela or her sister. When he said that, I felt a cold breeze making its way through my veins. I immediately pulled over and parked by the roadside as I was so angry at this person.
James noticed that I was really angry and gave me a moment to calm down, so he did not say a word for a moment. The car hooter made some noise as I banged on the steering wheel while shouting all sorts of obscenities against the whispering voice. “I swear it better not be her!” I shouted while looking towards my friend now. And he responded kindly, “But we don’t know for sure, maybe it’s my girl taking my shenanigans out on you.” He tried not to laugh as he said it. I knew he was trying to cheer me up, so I just smiled and shook my head as I headed back on the road.
“I just don’t know how they are getting all this information about me, brotha. I think they may have bugged my home, I swear.” “James yes, that’s a possibility. I thought about getting some security company to come sweep my whole apartment, but I can’t afford that shit.” Anyways as I was thinking about it, I realized that even if I have my apartment swept for bugs, do you really believe it would slow the stalker down, I doubt it! The thought of me failing to bring the situation under control just had me all worked up while driving home.